There is known a commodity recognition apparatus which recognizes a commodity, through an object recognition for the commodity or by extracting and analyzing a code-symbol, e.g., a barcode, from an image captured by photographing the commodity through an image capturing unit using a CCD (charge coupled device) and the like.
In such types of commodity recognition apparatus, it is general to illuminate the commodity held in front of the image capturing unit by an operator with light emitted by a light emission device arranged nearby the image capturing unit.
To cope with the variation in the position of the commodity held by the operator, a first illumination unit for illuminating an area nearby the image capturing unit and a second illumination unit for illuminating an area further than the area mentioned are respectively arranged in the commodity recognition apparatus. With such a constitution, it is easy to achieve brightness suitable for photographing both the commodity held close to the image capturing unit and the commodity held far away from the image capturing unit with the image capturing unit.
However, intensity of light emitted from the second illumination unit is generally greater than that from the first illumination unit. If the commodity held close to the image capturing unit is illuminated by the second illumination unit, overexposure may occur in the image obtained by the image capturing unit, and in this case, there is a possibility that the commodity cannot be recognized correctly.
Thus, it is desired that the commodity can be recognized correctly even if the commodity held close to the image capturing unit is illuminated by the second illumination unit.